Beytullah Gunduz, 40, a senior member of the Hackney Turks organised crime group, has been jailed for life for orchestrating a gun attack outside a Turkish restaurant in east London. He was found guilty of conspiring to murder Onur Guzel, who was shot on June 20 last year.
The 38-year-old victim was gunned down outside his family restaurant Umut 2000 in Dalston, following threats and the attempted extortion of hundreds of thousands of pounds. Gunduz had himself narrowly avoided a shooting in which a nine-year-old girl was badly hurt as gang crime spilled over onto London’s streets.
Sentencing at the Old Bailey
On Friday, Gunduz refused to attend court and was jailed in his absence for life with a minimum term of 20 years. In a televised sentencing at the Old Bailey, Judge Mark Lucraft KC said the injuries Mr Guzel suffered had been “permanent” and “irreversible”.
The judge read from Mr Guzel’s victim impact statement in which he described his devastation at what happened. Mr Guzel stated: “The attack did far more than injuring me physically. It has altered the course of my life. It has taken my sense of safety. I’m trying every day to put the pieces back together but the truth is I am no longer the person I was before this happened.”
Gang rivalry and extortion
Previously, the court had heard how Mr Guzel was caught in the middle of a bloody gang rivalry between the Hackney Turks and the Tottenham Turks. Gunduz had been targeted in a shooting in May 2024 in which a nine-year-old girl was hit in the head outside the Elvin Restaurant in Hackney. He had been sitting in the cafe minutes before the incident.
Following a trial last year, hired spotter and getaway driver Javon Riley, 33, was jailed for life with a minimum term of 34 years for causing grievous harm with intent to the girl and attempting to murder three men.
The later shooting outside Umut 2000 came after the Hackney Turks had accused Mr Guzel’s family of paying the Tottenham Turks £100,000 and demanded the same amount.
Victim's account and threats
Mr Guzel had been on a break from work and talking to his wife on the phone at around 10pm when he heard a “loud bang”. He told jurors: “I felt numb and I understood something was wrong with me. There was this really loud pinging in my ear. The first thing I done was I checked my chest and arms to see if I have been shot in the chest and arms. I lifted my shirt up and could see I had blood on my lower abdomen.”
People rushed out of the restaurant to help and two police officers provided first aid before Mr Guzel was taken to the Royal London Hospital for treatment. While still in intensive care, Mr Guzel requested police visit him so that he could tell them about two other shooting incidents in the weeks before which were blamed on the Tottenham Turks.
Last April, his brother’s house was targeted and then two days later, five shots were fired at the restaurant at 2am when there was no-one there, he said. In November 2024 Mr Guzel’s brother received a text message demanding £100,000 or “the heads will be blown off family members” and an image of a gun, jurors heard.
At the time of the shooting near his brother’s home, his sister-in-law was pregnant, jurors heard. But the attackers did not know where they lived and got the wrong address, with bullets going through a neighbour’s door.
Afterwards, Mr Guzel’s father, who co-owned the restaurant, received a phone call now demanding £300,000 as the police had been notified, the court heard. His sister-in-law also received a text message saying: “You made it worse by letting the police know and now we are going to ask for more. We are going to do another shooting. The next one will be your head.”
Mr Guzel told jurors that his family never paid any money to gangs. Gunduz denied being involved in the shooting of Mr Guzel, who he knew as he regularly ate at the restaurant. He had previous convictions dating back to 2008 including for having an offensive weapon in public, drugs, using threatening words or behaviour, assaulting a constable, and twice damaging a roulette machine after losing money.
